


my immune system is too weak to fight off my smile muscles

by santiagone



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i mean they literalLY compare themselves to rom-coms, the fluffiest sick!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 22:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11541279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagone/pseuds/santiagone
Summary: “Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious,” she teases. Jughead raises his eyebrows at her.“You're not going to say handsome?”And if Betty's cheeks are pink, it's because of hercold. Definitely not anything else. “I wouldn't rule it out,” she mumbles, and shoves a spoonful of soup in her mouth to save some of her dignity.(Or, when Betty falls sick, Jughead knows just the cure. Here's a hint: it's not cough medicine.)





	my immune system is too weak to fight off my smile muscles

**Author's Note:**

> if you know where the title's from, a thousand kudos to you! let's be friends.

Betty Cooper must be dying. That’s the only explanation for it. Her skin is sweaty, and her throat is scratchy, and her head starts to feel woozy every time she sits up too fast. Her lips are cracked, she can't stop sniffling - and  _ realistically _ , the rational part of Betty’s brain knows that she's just picked up a standard cold. But the emotional, slightly untrustworthy part of her brain is screaming  _ ALERT, ALERT, BETTY COOPER IS OFFICIALLY MALFUNCTIONING _ . 

So she must be dying. That, or the universe is finally deciding to punish her for that one time she forgot to recycle her lemon soda bottle. It's the only reasoning she will allow herself. 

“Are you  _ sure _ you don't want me to stay home?” Alice Cooper asks, already looping her earrings in. 

Betty thinks of her current situation,  _ plus _ the added input of Alice Cooper stressing to her about medicine and eating healthy all day, and grows even paler (if that's possible at this point). 

“I'm fine, Mom,” she croaks. “But thanks.”

“Okay.  _ Call me _ if you need anything, Elizabeth.” Alice grabs her purse, kisses Betty on the forehead, and disappears out of the room. A couple of moments later, Betty hears the faint sound of the front door closing, and the car engine starting up. 

Betty's mom has gone, which means so has one of Betty's problems. Unfortunately, she still has about three hundred of them left, and over half of them involve the words ‘ _ ow _ ’ and invoke some kind of physical torture that makes Betty want to take back any joke she'd ever told Archie about man-flu. 

Satisfied for the moment, Betty reaches out for her soft toy, curls up under the blankets, and promptly falls fast asleep.

 

.

.

.

 

_ Tap. Tap. Tap _ .

Something's happening. Betty jerks awake, immediately feeling the effects of the cold swell right back to her sinuses, and groans up at the floral patterned ceiling.  _ Why _ had she decided to go swimming in October?

_ Tap. Tap. Tap.  _

There it is again. That disruption. Is it… coming from her window? With a Herculean effort, Betty drags herself out of bed, pulls her blankets around her shoulders, and shuffles to pull open the blinds. 

“ _ Jughead! _ ” she exclaims, surprise falling straight out of her mouth. Sure enough, Jughead is perched on a ladder leading up to her window. He looks the same as ever, beanie placed lopsidedly, fleece jacket on his shoulders.

“Hey there, Juliet,” he says once she pushes open the window, and before her addled brain can pick  _ that _ apart, he pauses. “Wow. You look awful.”

“Thanks, Jug,” she croaks out. “What are you doing here?”

Jughead climbs into her room, swinging a brown paper bag in behind him, and closes the window again. “Archie told me that you were sick. So I brought you some provisions.”

_ Provisions _ . In Jughead language, that usually means burgers and fries from Pop’s - an idea that makes Betty feel a little queasy. 

“It's a school day,” she realises after a beat. 

He turns and raises his eyebrows at her. “I know. I have an algebra test in about… fifteen minutes ago.” 

“ _ Jughead.” _

“ _ Betts _ ,” counters Jughead, and somehow, without her even realising it, he's gotten close enough to squeeze her arm gently. “It's fine. I'll make it up tomorrow. You can even help me study, if you want.” 

It's weird, actually, because the minute Jughead touches her, Betty’s limbs lose all their tension. She buries herself in her blankets and allows Jughead to steer her back towards her bed in surrender, where she collapses. 

“Ugh. I hate algebra.”

“I think the whole student body hates algebra, Betty.” 

“Not Polly,” Betty recalls, a hint of wistfulness creeping into her tone. “She was good at math. She got all the best genes.”

Jughead sets the paper bag on her dresser, gaze still skeptical. “What genes did you get, then?”

“Betty genes,” she mumbles from behind a pile of blankets. There's no response from him, and when she finally glances up from her bed-mound, she sees he's fighting a smile down at her dresser. 

“Of course that's your answer,” he says, dry as usual. 

“What's in the bag?” she asks, somehow managing to make herself heard over the wild pounding in her head. 

“Supplies,” Jughead says vaguely. “It's a need-to-know basis kind of thing.”

“Don't I need to know?” she says, fumbling for some tissues. Miraculously, Jughead produces a box of Kleenex from his mysterious bag and offers it to her. 

“It's a Make-Betty-Better bag,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Named by JB, just for clarification.”

Betty smiles at him with cracked lips and hugs the box to her chest. 

“You're the best, Jug.”

“I wouldn't go giving me any labels,” he warns. “You haven't tried the Jones’ soup specialty yet.”

 

.

.

.

 

Betty only realises she's fallen asleep again when she feels a nudge to her shoulder. Jughead's sitting on the edge of her bed, holding a steaming bowl of rich orange soup. It smells… surprisingly  _ good _ . She blinks at him blearily, and he hands her a spoon. 

“It's pumpkin. My grandparents used to make it all the time. Jellybean always used to ask for this whenever she got sick.”

Betty can't help but smile at him, at the thought of a younger Jughead stretching up to the stove just to take care of his sick little sister. It warms her, possibly even more than the soup. 

“That's sweet, Jug.”

He shrugs, but the tips of his ears are the faintest bit pink. “Sweet isn't  _ exactly _ what I'm trying to brand myself as, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious,” she teases. Jughead raises his eyebrows at her. 

“You're not going to say handsome?”

And if Betty's cheeks are pink, it's because of her  _ cold _ . Definitely not anything else. “I wouldn't rule it out,” she mumbles, and shoves a spoonful of soup in her mouth to save some of her dignity. She's determined to stay a little grumpy at him for embarrassing her (she's sick, she can pull off a little attitude, right?) but the moment the soup touches her tongue her resolve melts, along with the creamy, buttery pumpkin flooding her senses.

“Juggy, this is  _ amazing _ ,” she marvels. “Seriously. It's—”

“Wholesome, right?” Jughead's grinning at her, a little bashfully, which is a cute look on him. She's seen smug Jughead, sarcastic Jughead, even  _ sweet _ Jughead on occasion. But bashful Jughead? That's really, really cute. 

“I feel like my cold’s disappearing already,” she assures him, which is not technically  _ untrue _ . The soup is soothing her sandpaper throat a little, and warming the chill in her bones. Still, Jughead laughs anyway. 

“I find that a  _ little _ hard to believe.” 

“It's true!” she insists, spooning another mouthful to prove her point. He shakes his head, mouth tipping at the edges, and for a second she feels inexplicably…  _ something _ . Sitting here in her cotton candy pink pyjamas and matching pink bed, with Jughead Jones, laughing as he takes care of her… it's heartwarming, and a little something else? But then she blinks, and it's over. She gestures to his bag.  

“Okay, I'll eat, you study.”

Jughead groans, splaying out on her bed. “Betty, no. I'm already ahead in all my classes.” 

“You're not ahead of me,” she points out. He fixes her with a look that makes her stomach do a funny little flip, so she pulls out all the stops. Puppy dog eyes, perfect princess pout. “Please, Jug? It’ll make me feel better.”

“Ugh, fine,” he relents, and she cheers, wiggling around in her spot whilst being careful not to spill the soup. “But just so you know, you're a terrible influence on me.”

“You wouldn't have it any other way,” Betty jibes. “Okay, c’mon, hand your book over. If we’re gonna do this right, we’re gonna do this Cooper style.  _ Flash cards _ .” 

Jughead makes a big deal out of retrieving his stuff, and Betty’s busy laughing so hard that she almost forgets about her runny nose and the drills in her head and her clammy forehead. 

 

.

.

.

 

Betty’s own soft snore is what wakes her up. (Or at least, she thinks so. It might also be the internal body clock ingrained in her after a lifetime of living with the Coopers.) The point is, she wakes herself up, and for a moment she's blissfully confused. Her vision’s still a little blurry, and she can't quite comprehend what’s happening right now, but she's perfectly warm and curled up against something soft yet firm, and there's gentle background noise. 

Then, her pillow makes a little snuffle, and Betty jerks awake.  _ Properly _ . As it turns out, said pillow has been none other than Jughead Jones. Her nose had been buried into the crook of his neck (oh  _ no _ , what if she'd  _ drooled _ on him? Or worse,  _ sneezed _ ?), both her hands curled around his arm like a teddy bear. The laptop is slipping precariously off his legs, and she’s under about thirty layers of blankets, thanks to Jughead and his obsessive need to keep piling them on her. 

As she wipes the t-shirt crease off her cheek, the events of the afternoon come whirling back. They'd studied; she'd thrown a pencil at him and watched it bounce off his nose and onto the floor. Then, they'd aborted that to watch  _ Rosemary’s Baby _ , and, evidently, conked out halfway through. 

Carefully, Betty disentangles herself from Jughead to reach for the box of tissues on her nightstand. She sneaks a glance at Jughead, peeking at him over the tissue from which she's blowing her nose. She still stands her ground on the whole ‘ _ sarcastic beanie brooder is actually cute beanie boy _ ’ stance, although he'd hate her if she said that. Maybe.  _ Would  _ he hate her? The point is, he looks positively adorable with his head lolling on the backboard, mouth slightly parted, hair slipping free of his hat. She smiles, unexpectedly, scrambling for her phone. She takes a picture and saves it for a rainy day. Moments like these are better remembered. 

Then, gravel crackles on the driveway. Betty's smile flips upside down. She practically shoves Jughead out of her bed with a gasp. 

“My mom’s home!” When she peers over the edge of the bed, he's blinking up blearily at her. She throws a pillow. “Stop smiling, dork! You need to go,  _ right _ now. Mama Cooper will eviscerate you, then me, then both our families—in that order, if we’re lucky.”

Jughead's still staring at her with those soft goony eyes, so she lurches out of bed, cold be damned, and pulls him insistently to his feet, herding him to the window and shoving all his stuff into his arms. 

“Ugh, c’mon, Jughead! I'm telling you this isn't going to end pretty, I—” He's stopped just before the window, whirling to face her, and she frowns at him. “What? What is it? Do you  _ want _ to be murdered by Alice?”

He shakes his head, as if breaking out of a reverie. “No, it's just—I forgot something.”

Betty immediately turns her focus back to her room. “What? I don't see—”

And then Jughead's dropping all his stuff and crowding into her space, hands coming to cradle her jaw. Her breath catches and her heart jumps all at once; she throws her hands out on his chest and swallows, eyes wide. 

“What are you doing?”

“I'm—I’m sorry,” he's saying, looking so pale that he might be the one who's sick. “I was just—I shouldn't have—”

“No, it's not that, it's just, I'm  _ sick _ !” she cuts in, voice eight notches of incredulous, and in three seconds flat Jughead’s expression turns from confusion to fondness to tentative hope. 

“Betty, I'm home!” comes Alice’s tinny voice, followed by a door slam, and Betty promptly shoves Jughead and his belongings out the window and leaps into bed just as her mother walks in. 

“Hi, darling, I brought home some cough syrup.” Alice frowns, and for a moment Betty thinks that she's developed a sensor for  _ Boy In Betty’s Room _ . “You look flushed. Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine,” Betty squeaks, and pins it down to the cold. 

 

.

.

.

 

It's been one and a half days since their almost-kiss, and she still hasn't heard from Jughead. And it's fine, really, because when does Jughead ever use his phone? And if she were Jughead, she'd be too afraid to visit Betty’s house in case she encountered her dragon mother again, too. But… still. An almost-kiss. That has to mean  _ something _ more than radio silence, right?

Finally, approximately three days after D-Day, when she finds the pencil she'd thrown at him under the bed, she gives in and texts him first. He immediately agrees to meet her at the Blue and Gold. 

But now that she's here, waiting for him, she can't help but overthink things. He hates her. Or—he's made some terrible mistake. Or he's been possessed by some crazy demon that had somehow convinced him to kiss Betty Cooper. 

The door swings open, and Betty breathes a sigh of relief. Saved from her own thoughts. 

He's wearing a grey sweater, and he looks just as awkward as she feels as he drops his bag and carefully closes the door behind him. 

“Hey. Feeling better?”

“Almost there,” she says awkwardly, and they descend into uncomfortable silence for a few moments. 

“Look, I—”

“I'm sorry about—” They say at the same time, and that makes Betty laugh a little. Jughead's shoulders ease up, and the tension deflates like an unknotted balloon. 

“You first,” she says, gesturing, and he sighs and bears a sheepish smile at her. 

“Okay, me first. This is such a stupid way to tell you—I was gonna do the whole Nancy Meyers thing and go all out, plan some elaborate rom-com—”

“Juggy,” she says. She can't tamp down her smile. 

“Right. Okay. Look—” Jughead straightens out his shoulders. “I… really like you. As a friend, but also as… a romantic interest. Kind of.”

Her brows furrow. “Kind of?” 

“Ugh, you're so not making this easy,” he complains, which is so  _ typical _ . “Okay, fine, I… love being friends with you. But I would also love to be more than friends with you. Hypothetically. That'd be cool.”

Betty raises her eyebrows. She's still trying not to giggle, but it's hard when she feels so weightless that she might just float away. “I've never heard you say the words ‘that’d be cool’ in my life, Jug.” 

“Shut up,” he laughs, but it's a little nervous, and she softens. 

“I really like you too, Jug.”

His smile goes a little lopsided and a lot disbelieving. “Are you—are you sure? I mean, aren't you in love with Archie?”

“Archie?” Betty scoffs. “C’mon, that was in the  _ fifth _ grade. Do  _ you _ still like the girl you crushed on in the fifth grade?”

Jughead blushes. “Um. Yeah.”

A beat passes. Betty's eyes widen. “Oh. You mean…”

“Yep.”

“Wow. Forget Nancy Meyers, that's Nora Ephron.” 

Jughead shrugs. There's a tentative giddiness in the sloping lines of his face.  “What can I say? I'm a sucker for  _ Sleepless In Seattle _ .” 

“Um, okay, for the billionth time— _ When Harry Met Sally _ is by far the better movie!” she protests, mouth parting in indignation. 

To her surprise, Jughead's expression melts into something so fond that it makes her a little weak in the knees. 

“You are  _ so _ predictable.”

And he takes three long strides and presses her up against the desk. Their faces draw in closer, so that she can count out every single long eyelash of his (not that she  _ would _ —that's more of a fifth date kind of thing) and file the exact shade of his pupils into the little box in her head labelled ‘ _ important things _ ’. 

His lips come in closer, so she can taste his breath on her tongue—and then she slams her hands out, eyes flying open. 

He groans. “Betts, you're killing me.”

“I'm still contagious!” she says worriedly. “You’ll get sick.”

He laughs, the vibrations warm and soothing against her body. “Betty, I can promise you, I  _ really _ don't care.”

“Okay, but— _ mmff _ ."

He's kissing her. Betty decides that maybe getting sick is a small price to pay. 

(And later, when Jughead complains up a storm about his newly developed cold and she waxes poetic about ‘ _ I told you so! _ ’, he’ll pull her in by the waist, grin, and say, “Still worth it, though.”)

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [santiagone](https://santiagone.tumblr.com).
> 
> in other words, i'm working on a new fic but?? would you guys rather see a roman holiday au, percy jackson au, tangled au or a love rosie au? or something else entirely?


End file.
